An old favourite game nowadays, this is a gateway game into the deeper world of board gaming which came out in 2004, and has multiple new maps and expansions since. It features a great premise of building train routes across a map, gaining points for claiming routes and joining up destination locations for bonus game end points.
The mechanics of the game are so straightforward, each turn your pick up a couple of coloured carriage cards, or perhaps a wild locomotive, with the aim to collect colour sets. Eventually you will lay these carriages down onto the board to claim routes and score points. Alongside this you have a set of location cards which give you end game bonus points or losses if you manage to join the location up with your track. There are extra points available for the longest route at the game end.
The gameplay is simple but fun and generally can be picked up by most family members, it gives you a fun competitive game. Since the original USA map, there have been numerous expansions adding new maps and extra rules to slightly increase the depth of the game.
This is my wife’s favourite game so it has remained in my collection a long time, and our own recent addition of the UK expansion which adds a map and technology upgrades has made this game work better as a two player experience.
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Expansions
There are many expansions you can add to enhance or change the gameplay (my additions highlighted green = own, blue = part owned, red = not purchased) :
Main Expansions
There are a number of anniversary versions of the game and a few main box editions that can be considered. These include 10th Anniversary, 15th Anniversary, Europe, 15th Anniversary Europe, Marklin, Nordic Countries, Germany and Rails and Sails, Northern Lights and First Journey.
Map Collections
From 2011 expansions were released consisting of new maps, and rules specific to each version : Asia (6 player games), India + Switzerland (more complex bonus scoring), Africa (terrain), Nederland (bridge tolls), United Kingdom + Pennsylvania (technology and stock markets), France + Old West (build routes that connect to your initial city), Poland (smaller board), Japan + Italy (bullet train and ferry), Stay at Home (free print at home).
Cities Collections
A series of editions scaled down the game to a city map, and these include New York, London, Amsterdam, San Francisco and Berlin, which largely change the train emphasis onto buses, horse drawn carts, cable cars, trams or bicycles.